Thread: Tape when honing = tape on balsa?

I would say that, for a wood, balsa is on the soft side, but I my experience, it does not deform while stropping. To me, balsa is soft much like a (insert razor shaped object) is soft; only when compared to things made of the same material.

But compare to metal is hard side?
Plus it has a good junk of chro2?

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I would say that, for a wood, balsa is on the soft side, .

I agree with Dylan. Balsa is soft like a nerf razor. Soft and yielding. Tape is thin, thin like ice. Taken together, these two points lead us to conclude that taping ice with nerf razors thins balsa.

But on a more serious note, the best thing to do to resolve this debate is to try it with and without tape, and check under a microscope whether a second bevel appears or not. I think.

James.

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

But compare to metal is hard side?
Plus it has a good junk of chro2?

I agree that balsa is soft compared to steel. I just did a quick press-test with a few razors. To preface, I usually don't use much pressure at all while stropping. With my normal stropping pressure, the balsa does not deform, at least not that I am able to see. With pressure, a full hollow blade will deform much more than balsa. A heavier grind will cause the balsa to deform, but it takes much more pressure than I would use to strop.

I guess I assumed that we were talking about stropping with the normal, light pressure.

James's microscope suggestion is a good one, but I don't have a microscope to see what is being abraded.

if you have honed blade with 1 layer of tape using Balsa with chro2 and strop that blade without tape your edge will be just fine.
i have done it many many times.
never had any issues.
Dylan why you are talking about pressure?
Strop as you usually do.
But before to do so you have to hone the blade with 1 layer of tape and then take tape off and strop balsa strop with chro2 on it.
After that compare them to another blade which will be honed with tape and leave the tape on and then strop on blase.
After all you could tell something about your test result.
As i mention i have done this many years ago.
Good luck to you on your testing.
James i think we are totally in different pages.
we are not talking about creating secondary bevel etc.
if you see what OP asks that will be clear to you .

If I strop as I usually do, then the balsa does not deform, so I really don't think the edge is getting any paste. I used the pressure to see what it would take to get the balsa to deform so the edge would get on the paste.

I can't really feel the difference between paste and not, so that wouldn't help me.

Are you already honed blade with tape and testing or you just testing regular blade and don't get any effect?
what you are trying to see looking the edge? is your bevel touches balsa and chro2? or it is just on the air?
Can you post your Balsa strop with chro2 pictures too?
thank you

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

If I strop as I usually do, then the balsa does not deform, so I really don't think the edge is getting any paste. I used the pressure to see what it would take to get the balsa to deform so the edge would get on the paste.

I can't really feel the difference between paste and not, so that wouldn't help me.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

If I strop as I usually do, then the balsa does not deform, so I really don't think the edge is getting any paste. I used the pressure to see what it would take to get the balsa to deform so the edge would get on the paste.

I can't really feel the difference between paste and not, so that wouldn't help me.

You don't need to use pressure to get the benefits of chrome-on-balsa. As long as the paste is applied correctly and the razor is stropped correctly, the edge is getting paste; in the end your face will tell you as much. If you can't tell the difference something is wrong.

I got a razor I'm going to hone tomorrow, I will hone it with tape, and finish on pasted balsa. I'll try to do one side with tape and the other without, and see if there's any visual difference in the microscope. I only have a 60 - 100 X mini microscope, but it should be enough to see the results.

Originally Posted by Zephyr

Once I was told that it's never necessary to tape the spine when finishing or touching up a razor on a pasted balsa strop, but lately I have been thinking about this, and have started to question this statement.

When a razor is honed with tape the angle of the bevel will be slightly different than without, wouldn't this also affect the result when using a balsa strop?

That sounds right to me. But:

Most people who sharpen with tape on the spine, strop (on leather) without tape. So they think that the strop will "wrap around" the slightly mis-angled bevel.

The balsa is softer than a stone, and less flexible than leather -- it fits somewhere in between. It might be soft enough to "wrap around" the slightly-wrong-angled bevel in the same way a leather strop would.

An ideal question for a controlled experiment . . .

Charles